When Demons Are Redeemed: The Dominant's Muse

One Hundred and Two - Later Is Now

ONE HUNDRED AND TWO 

Later Is Now

           

As Tristan speaks privately with the man who requested a one on one, Catherine’s ears, despite their greatest efforts, cannot pick up his voice from their position in the hallway perpendicular to the one where her master accompanied the suit. She is not surprised that the men are speaking in hushed tones, but also considers that they are perhaps not just around the corner at all, but away.

What’s going on? Tristan’s female nervously wonders once more, before angrily menacing her ears to hear. To just hear. Seconds more, however, and she has no choice but to accept their inability, their failure, and a part of her bitterly criticizes them for it.

Catherine then takes the deepest breath that her frenzied lungs will allow, before apprehensively refocusing her attention on listening for any sound that will warn her of her master’s imminent return. She hears not a thing, however, before Tristan turns the corner and her eyes register him before her ears do. No time now, though, to condemn them once again, as her master’s demeanour and countenance are immediate cause for alarm, and thus take precedence. Everything about Tristan’s advance, in fact, does, and what washes over Catherine due to what is powerfully and resolutely pressing forward towards her so weakens her from head to toe that her knees threaten to give way.

Although this turn of events had obviously not been unexpected, another false alarm had of course been desperately hoped for. Since that wish did not come to pass, however, Catherine now finds herself slipping into the abyss, as there is no doubt in her mind that this is it, that this is what her master has warned her about for a year now. Much more than a mere thought of Tristan’s anger and fury therefore suffocatingly thrives within her, as she falls, although she nevertheless manages to also be most resentful that her attendance at this “stupid” weekend play is what will seal her end.

Feeling so utterly small and inconsequential, Tristan’s female lowers her eyes and sees one of her master’s hands wave away her temporary bodyguard. As the man takes his leave, her own hand closes upon the small bag that she still holds, the one that this man gave her when she felt that she might throw up, a sensation that has now vastly increased.

Catherine’s mind now entertains no thoughts of the maimed non-refundable, nor thoughts of the tongue that still lies on the floor in the corridor, that is most unnaturally no longer in the possession of the one who was born with it, and who is now away. Neither is there guilt anymore at the absence of such thoughts, since all that now fully possesses Tristan’s female are thoughts of the wicked, wicked storm that is coming her way. The wind rising from it, as well as from Catherine’s fall, press hard upon her chest.

“Why won’t you look at me, Lovely?” Tristan inquires, much too calmly for the calm to be real, as Catherine sees it, and so, just the calm before the storm. “Lovely, why won’t you look at me?” Her master repeats.

Look up! Healer warns.

Snowball’s chance, at the bottom of that hill, Catherine sends back, her spirit, crushed, and her head therefore without the strength to obey healer.  

“Answer me,” Tristan demands.

He wants me to answer him, which means that he doesn't care anymore what my answering will do to my art, to his designs in my face. So, it’s a certainty, then, that he’s no longer interested in the come-totem contest, and that it’s all over. It truly is, Catherine continues to process. How quickly he’s forgotten his designs. How quickly preferring me dead has become his priority. Because he doesn’t want a treacherous mind, of course. Because he knows, now, that I betrayed him. I believe firmly that there’s nothing that he’s incapable of, and since we’re currently outside the official bounds of play, and alone, then what he’ll do to me . . .